John Henderson

Henderson: College football playoff shows four-ward thinking

If there were a football playoff this season, The Post's John Henderson could see Oregon's Josh Huff, left, Keanon Lowe and the rest of the Ducks playing for the national title. (Thearon W. Henderson, Getty Images)

College football became a real sport this week.

University presidents, so filled with hypocrisy, finally succumbed to common sense and put their stamp on a four-team playoff.

The "P" word, a scarlet letter for so long in this messed-up sport, is now part of the vernacular. It's about time. Now that presidents have awoken from their comas to give college football more credibility, they must do one more thing.

Nothing.

Stop at four teams. Don't listen to what will surely be an uproar over an eight- or 16-team NFL-style playoff system in which office college football pools begin overshadowing the NCAA basketball tournament.

In a playoff format, a single regular-season loss wouldn't be so critical to the national-title hopes of Alabama coach Nick Saban and the Crimson Tide. (Dave Martin, The Associated Press)

"I think all of us are realistic enough to know that if three or four or five or six years from now we end up in a year where there are five undefeated teams, someone's going to get angry and claim we ought to have an eight-team playoff," Nebraska chancellor Harvey Perlman said at the meetings this week.

The playoff system, beginning with the 2014 season, is complicated but terrific. Here's how it works: Two semifinals will rotate every year among six bowl games, all played on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. The two semifinal winners meet the next week on a Monday night.

The other four bowls will host the other conference champions and at-large teams determined by a committee of experts, and not a bunch of coaches, old football hacks and computers as in the current Bowl Championship Series formula.

If a four-team playoff began tomorrow, No. 1 Kansas State would play No. 4 Alabama, and No. 2 Oregon would play No. 3 Notre Dame. My guess would be Alabama and Oregon in a national title game yet to be named.

People wanting an eight-team playoff have never been glued to a TV in September, knowing a game like last year's LSU-Oregon opener would shape the title picture.

An eight-team playoff would mean Alabama's loss to Texas A&M last weekend was virtually meaningless. As it is today, the Crimson Tide was likely knocked out of a chance to defend its national title. With a four-team playoff, it would have had to sweat out the committee's final rankings for three weeks.

An eight-team playoff basically reduces nonconference games to an exhibition season. November games for highly ranked teams become mere tuneups.

The money for the four-team playoff, as we all told the presidents, will be massive. The BCS is negotiating with TV networks and estimates have been up to $7.2 billion over the next 12 years.

That's $600 million a year. While participating schools will get more money, just spreading it out evenly over 124 FBS schools, that's $4.8 million per school, 10 percent earmarked for academics.

"That revenue will be very important to nonfootball sports, particularly women's tennis, men's soccer and, again, the academic component," said Northern Illinois president John Peters. "We don't know numbers. But from my point of view, for my conference, what it means is more."

Also, in television, less sometimes is more. A Fox Sports executive told me in 2006 that he wasn't sure a four-team playoff would produce a big payoff. Unless estimates are way out in left field, he was a liar or a moron.

But what he told me made sense. Advertisers can only stretch their dollar to so many games.

"If it's more money I think we're perfectly prepared to leave money on the table to preserve the collegiate model," Perlman said. "I'm skeptical that it's more money. It'll be more money pushed into the postseason, but it'll take money away from the regular season."

So you have your playoffs, folks. Don't add another "P" word to the conversation: pushy.

Lockheed says object part of 'sensor technology' testing that ended ThursdayWhat the heck is that thing? It's fair to assume that question was on the minds of many people who traveled along Colo. 128 south of Boulder this week if they happened to catch a glimpse of what appeared to be a large, silver projectile perched alongside the highway and pointed north toward town.

PARIS (AP) — Bye, New York! Ciao, Milan! Bonjour, Paris! The world's largest traveling circus of fashion editors, models, buyers and journalists has descended on the French capital, clutching their metro maps and city guides, to cap the ready-to-wear fashion season. Full Story